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murmured against her temple, deliberately repeating my earlier observation.  In response, her hands curled tighter around my upper arms, and she missed a breath.  I crooked one finger under her chin and tilted her face up to make her look at me.  Such dark eyes…  “Do you take it often?” I asked, a loaded question.
    Her words caught in her throat.  “Do I…?” she started, at a loss.
    My free hand closed firmly on her hip, gripping the smooth material of her dress.  “Do you usually let men you hardly know kiss you?”
    There it was again, the way Chloe sucked her lower lip so disarmingly when she was self-conscious.  A flicker of wonder licked at the edge of my thoughts.  Had Ellison ever seen that particular look on her face?  Had he appreciated the delicious vulnerability of it?
    “No.”
    “You don’t let them touch you the way I did?” I pressed, wanting to hear her admit I was the first man who’d coaxed such a reaction from her.  “You don’t let them feel how warm and wet and tight you are?”
    Her voice was lower, her eyes wide pools, as she breathed, “No.”
    I could actually feel her blush heat the skin of her face beneath my fingers, as I held her cheek, tracing my thumb along her lips.  “You don’t let them dominate you?”
    Chloe paused this time, before shaking her head, making me wonder.  Was she telling the truth?  Had she been dominated before by a lover?  Had I perhaps asked the wrong question?  The idea of Penn dominating her in bed so enflamed me that I held her face a bit too firmly, making her flinch without truly pulling away from me.  I forced myself to relax, hissing my breath out slowly.
    “Do you like walks on the beach, Miss Bloom?”
    Her brow knit.  “What?  Now?”
    “Another whim.  Indulge me.”
    ***
    Another whim?  The last of Adrian Knight’s whims had resulted in one of the strongest orgasms of my life.  And this, this agonizing tension, this thrill of basic lust, was what I was here for, wasn’t it?  Knight had helped me experience that liberation of sex without emotional entanglements.  Once I’d had a few minutes to myself in my suite…  Once I’d had the chance to cringe at my behavior and rail at myself over the risks of casual sex…  Once I had finished lecturing myself on the inevitable consequences of surrendering to the temptations of immediate gratification…  Then the afterglow of endorphins had set in, and I’d collapsed back onto the bed in a smiling, sighing, weak-kneed heap with the taste of Adrian Knight still in my mouth.
    Now I let him lead me back inside and out a side door, to an earthen path through the trees and down a slope to the moonlit beach.  I had to pause to take off my shoes and carried them with me as he pulled me along, the warm sand shifting under my bare feet.  When we were far removed from the resort’s main buildings, and the boisterous strains of music were no more than stray pulses in the distance, he stopped and stood with his back to the ocean and a bright full moon.
    There was no kiss this time, no concern about unwelcome advances or a tentative offer to leave.  Pronounced need rumbled in Adrian’s voice as he told me, “I want you naked and on your knees.”
    And I reached for the zipper at the side of my dress, immediately, obediently.  My hands shook despite my decision, my commitment to this course.  It wasn’t enough to stop me from dragging down the metal tab, stepping out of the fitted sheath, peeling away the strapless bra or the wisp of soaked lace that was my panties.  With a night that only cooled down to about seventy degrees, I was comfortable—with the temperature, at least—kneeling nude in the open air.
    Maybe this surprised Adrian.  He stared at me for a long moment, his only movement the twitch along one loosely clasped hand against his leg.  “You are on your knees, naked, with a fully dressed man standing over you.  Does that excite you, Miss Bloom?”
    I